Wireshark · Wireshark-dev: Re: [Wireshark-dev] What about backporting fixes to older releases with the new workflow?

[Pascal Quantin <pascal.quantin@xxxxxxxxx>]

2014-03-31 23:17 GMT+02:00 Gerald Combs <gerald@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>:

On 3/27/14 10:13 PM, Anders Broman wrote:
> Hi,
> How do we handle backports in the new work flow with git? The submitter
> of a patch could help
> by submitting the backport once the patch has been accepted. But what do
> we do in the case
> when this isn't happening? The core developer accepting the patch might
> not have the time/don't want
> the extra work of making a backport.

Prior to the Git migration the Roadmap page was effectively a dumping
ground for merge conflicts. I'd end up processing the queue a day or so
before each release which didn't leave much time for testing or
validation. I would very much like to avoid going back to that.

If there aren't any merge conflicts you can cherry-pick a change using
several methods:

- "git cherry-pick"
- The "Cherry Pick To" button in Gerrit's web interface
- The "gerrit-cherry-pick" script:
   https://code.wireshark.org/review/Documentation/cmd-cherry-pick.html
- git-review's "-x" flag

For each cherry-pick the release notes need to be updated with any bug
fixes, protocol updates and (if needed) an advisory. This can be done by
amending or with a separate commit. I don't think this is documented
anywhere but I can add instructions to the wiki and/or the Developer's
Guide.

If there are merge conflicts someone needs to decide if the backport is
worth the effort of resolving the conflict. Again, I would prefer that
this happens as early as possible.

Hi Gerald,

what about using the old wiki page to list the bigfixes candidates for backport but not done yet? This could help (temporarily) people not confident yet with the new backport procedure (even if git cherry pick command makes it much less error prone than subversion).

BTW sorry for not updating the release notes with my backports (it was not documented afaik).

Pascal.